The celebration of Halloween
has dual origins. The first is in a pre-Christian Celtic feast associated with the Celtic
New Year. The second is in the Christian celebration of All Saints Day (Nov. 1st) and All
Souls Day (Nov. 2). In the British Isles November 1st is called All Hallows, thus the
evening before is All Hallows Eve.

The Celtic Feast

The ancient Celtic peoples who inhabited England,
Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Brittany (NW France) celebrated their New Year's Day on what
would be November 1st on our calendar. Prior to their conversion to Catholicism these
peoples practiced a pagan religion controlled by a priest class known as Druids. The
Druids are most famous for the stone monument of Stonehenge and other astronomical
calendars that remain in their former domains.

The period prior to the New Year, as the year
wound down, was a time to consider the mystery of human death. It was believed that on the
last night of the year the lord of death, Samhain, allowed the souls of the dead to return
to their homes. Souls that had died in sin, and in Celtic belief imprisoned in the bodies
of animals, could be released through gifts to the lord of death, including human
sacrifices. It was also thought that evil spirits, demons, ghosts, witches were also free
to roam around this night and could be placated by a feast. They would also leave you
alone if you dressed like them and thus appeared to be one of them. Families would also
extinguish their hearth fires on this evening to be re-lit from a common New Year's
bonfire built on the hilltops, which was meant to symbolize the driving away of darkness
and evil with the coming of the new year. The jack-o-lantern as a means of scaring away
evil and providing light may be a vestige of this custom. When the Romans conquered Gaul
(France) and Britain (excluding Scotland and Ireland) in the century before and after
Christ, the bloody elements of Druidic practice were banned.

The Christian Feasts of All Saints and
All Souls

During the first three centuries of Christianity the
Church frequently had to operate "underground" due to the persecutions of the
Roman state against her. During these periods there were many martyrs who died for their
faith in Jesus Christ. The most renowned of these were honored locally by the preservation
of the relics (if available) and by the celebration of the anniversary of their
death, as a feast in honor of their birth into eternal life. As time passed, neighboring
dioceses would honor each others martyrs and even exchange relics for veneration, the way
the first century Christians kept the clothes and handkerchiefs touched by St. Paul (Acts
19:12).

At the end of the third century and the beginning of the
fourth the most vicious of all persecutions occurred, that of the emperor Diocletian
(284-305). The martyrs became so many that in some places it was impossible to commemorate
even the most significant of them. The need for a common feast of all martyrs was becoming
evident. This common feast became a reality in some places, but on various dates, as early
as the middle of the fourth century. As far as Roman practice goes it is known that on 13
May 609 or 610, Pope Boniface IV consecrated the ancient Roman Pantheon as a temple of the
Blessed Virgin and All Martyrs. Beginning with Gregory III (731-741) the celebration of a
feast of All Saints was commemorated at St. Peters on November 1. Gregory IV (827-844)
extended this feast to the entire Church.

The feast of All Souls developed more gradually, first
with a monastic celebration of their departed on October 1st. This seems to have occurred
first in Germany in the 900s. The patronage of St. Odilio of Cluny extended this feast to
other monasteries, first of his own Order, then to Benedictines and others, from where it
spread to dioceses, including Rome. It was only in 1915 that the special privilege of
three Masses was granted to all priests by Pope Benedict XV.

Halloween during Christian Times

The conversion of Celtic peoples to Christianity did not
dampen their enthusiasm for the pre-Christian year-end custom of feasts, bonfires, and
masks, essentially new year's eve costume parties. The proximity to the developing
Christian feasts of All Saints and All Souls resulted in an attempt to move the
celebration to the evening before All Souls, when children would go door to door receiving
treats for a promise of prayer for the dead of the household. This attempt to associate
the Celtic remembrance of the dead with the Christian memorial ultimately failed and the
celebration remained a year-end custom (by the old Celtic calendar), though Halloween
remains primarily a children's feast.

With the massive emigration of Irish in the last century
the All Hallows Eve customs of costumes, jack-o-lanterns and trick or treating, were
transported to North America. Scary costumes remain the historical norm for Halloween,
though the advent of more sinister and violent times has encouraged many parents to take a
gentler approach. Today many families, and even parishes, hold group celebrations, often
with costumes of the saints, the poor souls or famous Catholics (such as the Pope, Mother
Teresa or the like) and other elements which re-enforce the Christian side of Halloween's
origins.